This character appears in 1 book.
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The Name of the Rose
by Umberto Eco
William of Baskerville: main protagonist, a Franciscan friar
Memorable Quotes by William of Baskerville:
“Yes. We were talking about those excluded from the flock of sheep. For centuries, as pope and emperor tore each other apart in their quarrels over power, the excluded went on living on the fringe, like lepers, of whom true lepers are only the illustration ordained by God to make us understand this wondrous parable, so that in saying "lepers" we would understand "outcast, poor, simple, excluded, uprooted from the countryside, humiliated in the cities." But we did not understand; the mystery of leprosy has continued to haunt us because we have not recognized the nature of the sign.”
“My boy,' he said, 'you have before you a poor Franciscan who, with his modest learning and what little skill he owes to the infinite power of the lord, has succeeded in a few hours in deciphering a secret code whose author was sure would prove sealed to all save himself... and you, wretched illiterate rogue, dare say we are still where we started?”
“Books are not made to be believed, but to be subjected to inquiry. When we consider a book, we mustn't ask ourselves what it says but what it means, a precept that the commentators of the holy books had very clearly in mind.”
“The prince can and must condemn the heretic if his action harms the community, that is, if the heretic, in declaring his heresy, kills or impedes those who do not share it. But at that point the power of prince ends, because no one on this earth can be forced through torture to follow the precepts of the Gospel: otherwise what would become if that free will on the exercising of which each one of us will be judged in the next world?”
“You see?' he said to me. 'Under torture or the threat of torture, a man says not only what he has done but what he would have liked to do even if he didn't know it. Remigio now wants death with all his soul.”
“And don't succumb too much to the spell of these cases. I have seen many other fragments of the cross, in other churches. If all were genuine, our Lord's torment could not have been on a couple of planks nailed together, but on an entire forest.”
“No one ever obliges us to know, Adso. We must, that is all, even if we comprehend imperfectly.”
“Yes. They lied to you. The Devil is not the Prince of Matter; the Devil is the arrogance of the spirit, faith without smile, truth that is never seized by doubt. The Devil is grim because he knows where he is going, and, in moving, he always returns whence he came. You are the Devil, and like the Devil you live in darkness.”
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